Bowling Green needed nearly 15 minutes to settle into its tournament opener on Wednesday.
But once the Bobcats got comfortable, its offense pieced together passing combinations for a relentless
attack that overwhelmed Fremont Ross en route to an 11-0 Division I tournament-opening win.
The tournament win was Bowling Green’s first since beating Bryan 2-1 in Division II tournament opener in
2013.
“The big thing is we’re in D-I, so the thought all season was it’s just not going to matter come
tournament time, no matter how good we do all season,” BG head coach Erika Kimple said. “Then to be able
to land middle of the pack when we got seeded and be able to draw a team that we can compete with, to go
out with a win is huge for them.”
BG girls soccer, which improved to 8-9 overall with the win, had competed in Division II until this
season.
The Bobcats, seeded 12th, advance to play top-seeded and No. 2-ranked Anthony Wayne at 7 p.m. Monday at
Sylvania Northview High School.
Madi Wagner, a senior and integral part of the Bobcats’ offense, had a pair of chances early.
She rolled her first shot from the right just barely wide of the left bar and about minute later Brennan
Balkovec’s pass into the box was just out of the reach of a charging Wagner.
Wagner found the back of the net on her third look, bouncing one off the bar and into the net with 20:36
to play in the opening half. She scored a second goal in the second half.
Two other seniors scored for BG.
Balkovec buried a shot of her own less than a minute into the second half, when a pass hit her foot in
stride through the right seam to set up a chip shot into the right side of the frame.
Alex Bellavia, a senior defenseman who has played goalie for much of the season when starting keeper
Carrina Wiseman-Esparza missed significant time with an injury, played the field for the final handful
of minutes before scoring with 3:15 to play. The goal was the first of her high school career.
“It means so much to them to know they’ve worked so hard for four years and they get to end successful.
They get to end on their most successful that this team has had since 2013,” Kimple said. “Most wins, we
had a win streak. To know that they’ve been a part of that, and they’ve been a part of building that up,
I think they’re really excited.”
The 11 goals were the most Bowling Green had scored a match all season.
Underclassmen handled the rest of the scoring.
Cece Marovich, a freshman who played the final 10 minutes in goal, scored BG’s second goal of the night
on another set up from Balkovec.
Macy Ash, a freshman who finished a three-on-one just minutes before halftime, buried the third goal with
15:43 to play in the first half.
Junior forward/mid Sydney Baer also scored in the first half for the Bobcats.
“To be able to move the ball and pass the ball is really important to me. When I started coaching them
last year that was my first thing,” Kimple said.
“For them to have the ability to move the ball and to play the through-balls and to be really unselfish
at times when they could have not, I’m pretty happy with that.”
Sydney Maas, another freshmen, netted a pair of goals in the second half for BG — which rarely let
Fremont Ross possess the ball on its half of the pitch. Freshman Chloe Higgins also scored in the second
half.